International Law

signonnow@hotmail.co.uk - The Email Address Most Likely To Be Snooped On ? - Labour in crisis: the Hotmail conspiracy

The Guardian newspaper has a story about The Email Address Most Likely To Be Snooped On over the next few days, which has some points of interest for political whistleblowers, political conspirators and investigative journalists and bloggers.

Labour in crisis: the Hotmail conspiracy

Over past month 'rebellion of all the talents' has never met but plotted by email, borrowing tactics from Trotsky

* Allegra Stratton, Patrick Wintour and David Hencke
* The Guardian, Thursday 4 June 2009

[...]

They decided there would be a "tree" - a stalking herd - which would fan out across the parliamentary Labour party. Unlike previous rebellions which relied on huddles in corridors or face-to-face tearoom meetings, this would be ­better done virtually.

Recess came, recess went and at 10am on Monday morning a very respected select committee chairman came up to one rebel and asked for a meeting. "Because I think we're going to go aren't we".

And so it was. The next day a Hotmail account was set up. The address gave nothing away: signonnow@hotmail.co.uk. The idea was that sympathetic Labour MPs would be encouraged to send an email endorsing a single sentence. This sentence would then be printed off and added to parliamentary notepaper, with a list of all those who responded to the email address listed with the two-word battlecry: "I agree".

Wouldn't a mobile phone SMS text message "friendship tree" be more likely to be effective ?

Presumably backbench Labour MPs do actually have the mobile phone numbers of some or all of their colleagues ?

One "branch" of the tree joined the team two days ago to become an eighth member. The Guardian met this MP in the corner of a Pugin-decorated dining room and discussed the plot as glasses were arranged and crockery assembled for an event.

This MP has been involved in the plot for only two days and said he had been moved to get involved by Brown's behaviour over expenses and the way in which five MPs had been disciplined by the NEC's star chamber over expenses claims revealed in the media. "A lot of us feel that Gordon Brown is taking Labour MPs outside one by one and shooting them. His already lamentable performance has just got worse in the last few days. Gordon Brown is a liability."

Within the tree, there are concerns about the method chosen to assemble the signatories. One member said: "One of the problems with what has come out already is that an email sounds very ­esoteric. We are asking MPs to send an email into the ether which says they believe that Gordon Brown should not be the leader of the Labour party. That is very high risk. As it is, the Labour party has never sent out a group email and if it did I bet you'd get back 150 emails saying 'account not recognised' or 'mailbox too full'. Labour MPs are not very electronic and I have to say I am worried about this method."

[...]

Presumably The Guardian newspaper has chosen to publish this email address in order to tip off those "not very electronic" Labour MPs and their, perhaps more computer literate, staff assistants.

This all seems a bit amateur - perhaps the Labour party MPs and the Guardian journalists should read a few of our free Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Activists etc. - http://ht4w.co.uk

Some obvious questions pertaining to the anonymity of the identities of the "plotters" :

Full post as published by Spy Blog on June 03, 2009 (boomark / email).